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For those who don't know...""Strange Fruit" [wikipedia.org]is a song most famously performed by Billie Holiday that condemns American racism, particularly the practice of lynching and burning African Americans that was prevalent in the South at the time when it was written.

Holiday's phrasing was so unique that every song is a treat, but 'Strange Fruit' was, perhaps, the song for which she is best known.

The.aspx extensions on their pages showed me that they were running.NET, most likely on a Windows server (mono is a Linux port). I reported them to M$-UK so that they do an investigation. Those bastards had better not be disrespecting copy-right law. Bill Gates needs to keep shoes on his little children.

I kind of like the irony that the central character in the strip - Akiko - looks an awful lot like Hopey from Jaime Hernandez's 'Love & Rockets'. Is this a job for Captain Copyright?

The comic does make a good point, though. The copyright laws (worldwide, not just in the US) are seriously fucked up if corporations are demanding thousands of dollars just because somebody's movie-theme ringtone can be heard in the background of a documentary.

Wow, I came to click "reply" on the weak attempt at humor at the expense of this desparate song, then I see the comment on Akiko and thought the author meant this [markcrilley.com] AKiko, and while catching up on Crilly's newest stuff, Billie Holiday comes out of my iPod with the song.

All while I'm supposed to be working. The net is a 900 foot tall vampire what feeds on productivity.

That is the point that must be driven into the heads of the don't know/don't care people. The various industries that benefit from the long copyrights are very good at invoking the welfare of the artists, the actual creators of IP, even though most artists can't live off the royalties. Live performance is the only way to make a living for most of those who can make a living off their creations. All the money gets eaten up by the starmaking machinery behind the popular song, film, and book.

If you didn't see Courtney Love does the Math [jdray.com] in the Weird Al thread, please read it. it is a rather intelligent rant from the artist POV.

A shallow understanding of copyright law would make it seem that artists and their fans would be on opposite sides of this issue. But, except for a few who have retired on their royalty checks and no longer need to create or perform, that isn't the case. It is fans and artists vs the distribution industry. As soon as everyone understands that it is artists who should get paid for creating and while the distributors should get paid for distributing, and royalties should only be an incentive to artists as originally intended, then maybe our culture will belong to us and not locked up in private hands. Once an artist goes public with his work, then it is no longer private property. The copyright is simply a reward for contributing to the public forum. Wasn't that the original intent of the US short copyright?

Creators do benefit from copyright, actually. When the laws were enacted way back when it was common practice to reprint author's works without permission or compensation. Often the original author's name would be be removed entirely, or abridged to the point where the original meaning was ruined. The laws today continue to protect creators from seeing their works misapproriated-- and it's pretty much the only power a creator has to protect himself.I'm not saying copyright law isn't broken in many ways,

You make a good point in that the contracts in some industries are more exploitive than in others. This problem might be eliminated by making new acts less eager to sign anything handed to them, but it could also be fixed by making copyrights nonsellable assets. The talent itself is nontransferable, why should the copyright? It isn't much of an incentive to create if it is owned by someone without the necessary talent or if the original creator has died. Sure, a collection of copyrights might make a nic

The problem with creative property (ugh, but it does sound better than IP) is that without some sort of law, it can't be owned outright like material property. The minute it is shown, displayed, or performed in public, it is out of the bag. In the olden days, it meant other people could write it down, sing it, or otherwise reproduce it with there own hands which usually didn't make as good of a copy, certainly not an accurate copy. Now that virtually identical copies can be made for little cost, natural